Yellowjackets swarm the Pride in a 96-79 defeat

LAMONI, Iowa – Returning to the court for the first time in almost two weeks, the Clarke University men's basketball team couldn't keep up with Graceland University in a 96-79 defeat Thursday evening at the Morden Center.

With five players scoring in double-figures and as a team scoring 47 and 49 points in each half for GU, the Yellowjackets shot the ball well this evening, particularly from three-point range. As a team, GU shot 31-68 (45.6%) from the floor including 10-27 (37%) from deep compared to CU's 31-77 (40.3%) and 5-27 (18.5%).

In only 18 minutes of play, GU's Aleksa Markovic made the most of his minutes scoring 16 points to tie the team lead and crashing the boards with five. The other 16-point scorer, Austin Braun scored his throughout 32 minutes on 5-11 (45.5%) shooting and 2-4 (50%) from deep.

The other three guys in double-figures for Graceland are Patrick Fisher and his 14 points on 6-12 (50%) shooting, Carson Busch who finished with 11 points, with nine of them from three-point land, and finally Carter Brown who scored nine of his 12 points from the free-throw line.

Trailing by as much as 26 points at 68-42 with 12:45 to play in the second half, the Pride would go on a 31-19 run over the last 8:33 to cut the lead down to 87-73 with 4:18 to play in the game, but that would be as close as they would get as they put up 50 points in the second half.

Dubuque native, Daquon Lewis scored his career-high 19 points on 8-11 (72.3%) shooting, while also getting seven rebounds. Biggie Luster also finished in double-figure scoring with 18 points and also led the team with 11 rebounds. The two bigs for CU, Jake Layman and Jacob Fierst scored 14 and 10, respectively.

The Pride will look to bounce back at home, on Saturday, Dec. 2nd against Baker University beginning at 2:00 p.m. CST.